Why Chanting In Kashmir Mosques Began In Departure From Tradition

Sameer Arshad Khatlani
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On one of his trips to Srinagar, the capital of the Indian side of Kashmir, veteran BBC journalist Sir Mark Tully heard an unusual, rhythmically rising and falling chanting from a white marble mosque. The chanting at sunrise from the revered mosque on the banks of the Dal Lake in Hazratbal, which houses a relic of the Prophet Muhammad, he wrote, sounded 'not unlike Hindu bhajans'. Tully was not entirely off the mark. The chanting was that of Aurad-ul-Fatiha, an anthology of Quranic verses and the Prophet’s sayings  14th-century saint Mir Syed Ali Hamdani complied for converts to Islam to chant in mosques similar to how it was done in temples.

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The faithful have been chanting the anthology in mosques since then in a major departure from the otherwise Muslim practice of silent worship. Hamdani, who popularised Islam among the masses in Kashmir, introduced the practice as the converts, Tully wrote in his book India In Slow Motion, missed 'their temple worship with its occasional singing and dancing.' The chanting of Aurad-ul-Fatiha, however, is not unusual and is part of well-known Sufi meditation practice or zikr. 

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The saint also introduced the Dua-e-Subah (morning prayer), whose chanting, according to Saleem Beigh, a former bureaucrat and a heritage expert, has '100 per cent semblance to the morning Buddhist chant'. These unique practices are seen as abiding examples of Kashmir’s famed syncretic tradition.  Mehbooba Mufti, the then chief minister of the region, alluded to this when she cancelled all her appointments and rushed to Hamdani’s hospice—the Khanqah-e-Moula on the banks of the Jhelum— in Srinagar from Jammu, over 300 km away, in November 2017, after an overnight fire damaged the shrine’s spire. Several top officials accompanied Mufti. Another former chief minister Farooq Abdullah followed and echoed her message that the shrine symbolised Kashmir’s pluralistic ethos and was its source of spiritual solace. Separatist leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik too visited the shrine. Hundreds of wailing women and men also thronged the damaged shrine. Separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani issued a statement paying rich tributes to Hamdani and sent a delegation to the shrine. N N Vohra, the then governor of the region, recalled his many visits to the hospice and asked the government 'not to lose any time' in repairing the damage.

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The saint's status had people of possibly all ideological hues rush to the Khanqah-e-Moula, whose architecture is similar to that of Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid, and is another aspect of Kashmir's unique culture. The Masjid was built under the guidance of Hamdani’s son, Mir Muhammad, about a kilometre away from the hospise at Nowhatta in the old city. The courtyard of the mosque, Tully wrote, 'unusually for India, is not paved; it is a garden. The customary domes are lacking too; instead the roofs are reminiscent of a pagoda and the dragons jutting out like gargoyles from the roofs are evidence of Buddhist influence.' For Tully, this unusual 'building symbolises the particular form of Islam' practised in Kashmir.

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Hamdani played a key role in shaping Kashmi's unique ethos and that is why his influence over the region remains strong centuries after he passed away and lies buried over 1,300 km from Srinagar at Kulob in the Khatlon province of Tajikistan. Born in Hamadan in modern-day Iran in 1314, Hamadani, a descendant of the Prophet, visited Kashmir for the third and last time a year before his death in 1384. The visit coincided with Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur’s conquest of his native land. 

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Hamadani brought some 700 people with him to Kashmir, including artisans, craftsmen, painters, calligraphers, and scholars. The saint, whom Kashmiris know as amir-i-kabir (the great leader), is credited with promoting crafts including shawl weaving, which has become a symbol of Kashmir globally. He was himself an expert needleworker who rejected the idea of holy men living off their followers and sewed caps to earn a living.

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Hamdani was also a man of letters whom journalist and former Indian federal minister M J Akbar has described as a great scholar and missionary in 'the Renaissance mould' (Kashmir: Behind The Vale). Hamdani authored over 100 books 'ranging from religion to jurisprudence to politics, physiognomy and philosophical poetry'. His 'lifestyle of self-abnegation, simplicity, and rejection of material world… struck an immediate chord,' Akbar wrote. Hamdani’s Dhakhirat al-Muluk was a guide to rulers on how to treat their subjects, and called for 'equitable justice, irrespective of religious differences.'

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Hamdani importantly established a network of khanqahs (hospices), where people could eat and pray together—pathbreaking social change in a rigidly hierarchical society where one's birth decided a person's lower or higher status. His teachings inspired Kashmir’s indigenous Rishi Sufi movement—the father of the founder of the Rishi movement, Shaikh Nuruddin Nurani, converted to Islam under the influence of Hamdani’s followers. One of the leading lights of the ethos that Shaikh Nuruddin—also known as Nund Rishi—represented, was the woman mystic Lalleshwari, popularly known as Lal Ded, who pleaded against differentiating between a Hindu and a Muslim.

This is a slightly edited version of a piece first published in The Indian Express, the author's former employer, in 2017

Sameer Arshad Khatlani is an author-journalist based in New Delhi. He has been a Senior Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times, India’s second-biggest English newspaper. Khatlani worked in a similar capacity with The Indian Express, India's most influential newspaper known for its investigative journalism, until June 2018. Born and raised in Kashmir, he began his career with the now-defunct Bangalore-based Vijay Times in 2005 as its national affairs correspondent. He joined Times of India, one of the world's largest selling broadsheets, in 2007. Over the next nine years, he was a part of the paper's national and international newsgathering team as an Assistant Editor. 

Khatlani has reported from Iraq and Pakistan and covered elections and national disasters. He received a master’s degree in History from the prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. Khatlani is a fellow with Hawaii-based American East-West Center established by the US Congress in 1960 to promote better relations and understanding with Asian, and Pacific countries through cooperative study, research, and dialogue. 

Penguin published Khatlani’s first book The Other Side of the Divide: A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan in February 2020. Eminent academic and King’s college professor, Christophe Jaffrelot, has called the book ‘an erudite historical account... [that] offers a comprehensive portrait of Pakistan, including the role of the army and religion—not only Islam’.